Windows 10: File History does not recognize external hard drive since reformat

File History stopped backing up at some point was a single file name too long for it?. I reformatted my external hard disk, a WD My Book. Now File History will not back up to it, despite it showing up in a list of possible external drives to back up to. I've tried using a free trial version of Backblaze too but it simply isn't backing up. Any suggestions?

:)

 

File History does not recognize external hard drive. Can not turn File History on

An apparent update to Windows 10 caused File History to turn itself off. When trying to restart it, File History keep getting message "no external hard drive detected". Widows 10 shows the external disk working with no problems. When i tried to download
data to the external hard drive with out File History on I get a Download Failed message with an error code 0X81000019

I cleaned and reformatted the disk but File History still does not recognize it.

Help How can i back up my data in Windows 10. I didn't recognize it at the time but when I recently tried to restore a missing file from my backup drive all the data on the backup drive had the same update dates of early November 2019. Windows 10 File History
was working OK prior to that time.

 

File History Baxckup not recognizing External hard drive

Scheduled backup stop working. Went to File History and found it had turned itself off. When trying to turn File History back on got message Could not recognize external drive. Tried reformating drive, called MS Support, nothing worked, so tied a different
external drive and File History recognized it and started backup. Stopped backup and reinstalled old drive to see what would happen. This time File History recognized old drive and it is now working fine.

I originally thought there was a problem with the external drive but now it looks like the drive was OK and it took switching drives to wake File History up.

Has anyone else had this problem and does Microsoft Support or Development ever read these post to help identify bugs in the system.

 

Reformatting external hard drive for windows 10

Hi Anthony - thank you for the response but you misunderstood my question..... I currently have an external hard drive that I have been using on a windows 7 computer. I recently purchased a new windows 10 computer and connected my external hard drive
to the new computer. The new computer did not recognize the external hard drive and instructed me to reformat the hard drive. If I reformat my external hard drive I will lose all of the files....and I dont want that to happen. I want to keep the files on
my hard drive AND be able to use the external hard drive with my new windows 10 computer. How can I do that?